Ch.34 Vulcan king

"Alright. My job in coming over was to find the disturbance and destroy it. I'll take care of the Vulcan king." Said Jax as he turned towards the battlefield. "Do you have any idea where he is? If not, I'll search for it." Questioned Jax as he saw the enormous battlefield in front of him.

"We have no idea whether there is one and if there is where it is. Currently, we are just trying to build a defensive perimeter to protect the village behind and stop the Vulcans from going to the center of the kingdom." The commander replied even more respectfully since he knew that to receive such a job, the young man in front of him had to be amongst the strongest of A-rank mages. Moreover, considering his age, as long as he continued to grow this way, he would quickly become an S-rank mage.

"I see." Answered Jax as he focused on the earth wall behind him and started to reinforce it and made more spikes appear on the wall. At the same time, he used his nature magic to grow some vines to trip the monsters into the traps prepared by the other mages. After spending close to 30% of his magic power, the wall was way more durable thanks to the earth he had compressed. Moreover, with the vines which would trip some monsters, the frontline would have it a bit easier for some time.

Seeing that it worked, Jax jumped down from the ten-meter high wall and fell directly in his shadow to shift towards other shadows on the battlefield. Jax had modified this new spell had been from another magic that allowed the mage to move in his shadow. With the change, Jax could go from one shadow to another as long as it was in sight. It allowed him to move a few times faster.

Going at his fastest speed in Vulcans' army, Jax tried to find the king's trace. From the information he had gotten from a book, whenever a Vulcan king appeared, the monsters would become restless and eventually attack the villages and cities, causing great destruction. One of the goals of leaving their favourite environment was finding some women, and the second to find some food. It was said that the king was an even bigger pervert than the normal Vulcans. Moreover, whenever they left the mountains, the normal Vulcans would be crazy about attacking in the hope of bringing back a female to their king to gain their favour. As such, the king would always be on the last line of monsters, surrounded by elite Vulcans who had semi-evolved when the king evolved. The elite Vulcans would be loyal to the king, and they had the strength of average to top A-rank, while the Vulcan king had the power of a weak S-rank mage.

Thankfully, while Jax wasn't an S-rank mage, he had enough magical power to take care of some of the lowest S-ranks. It was possible only due to his multiple smaller statues, which acted as magical reservoirs.

As Jax remembered the information on the king of the Vulcans, he made his way towards the back of the horde but even after two hours; he still hadn't found anything. Frowning, he stopped on the army's side and took a break due to having used up his dark magical power.

During his resting time, Jax focused on his light magic. If he could create some sort of tangible illusion made of light, the Vulcans would bring him directly to their king. As such, Jax started to work on his light magic. He had never been so focused on creating a new spell with his magic. Of course, he hadn't been stupid and had used his earth magic to place some detection traps to detect any enemies if they approached.

Five hours later, Jax finally made an illusion that looked like something. Using the image of a random girl he had seen in the village, he managed to shape the figure of a human somehow, and he worked on the details. Anyway, it didn't matter if it was ugly. As long as it was solid, looked like a woman and human, the Vulcans wouldn't bother. After all, for them, a human woman was a human woman. Whether the girl was ugly or not didn't matter.

Lifting his traps, Jax jumped into the shadow and made an illusion made of solid light appear. He made the brightness disappear and hid in the shadow while he made the illusion walk towards the Vulcans. As soon as she came close enough, Jax changed his voice using his sound magic and shouted with what he hoped to be a convincing female voice.

Once he saw that the Vulcans had seen the illusion, Jax made the illusion fall on the ground to make her seem unconscious. Those monsters weren't the most intelligent as they merely came closer to the women, took her in their hands and ran towards the back of the army while letting out a happy shout. It attracted what Jax thought to be envious eyes, but he wasn't sure. Anyway, he followed the Vulcan and no more than half an hour later, Jax saw the Vulcan arrive at the foot of the mountain and into a clearing.

Jax, seeing the elite's appearance and the king Vulcan, narrowed his eyes as he finally found his targets. The king was seated on what he could make to be a makeshift throne. The clearing was devoid of vegetation as ice spread from the surroundings of the king.

As the Vulcan entered the clearing with an unconscious illusion, Jax proceeded to set a trap to give himself an advantage. He started by creating a big hole under the ground. Since he couldn't take the dirt out, he had to condense it. He worked for around a dozen minutes as the elite Vulcans made some weird dance around the unconscious illusion. It seemed to be some sort of ceremony for the king. Anyway, this gave him more time as he finished creating the hole. At the bottom of the trap, he made spikes appear while on the walls, he made his nature magic work by preparing roots ready to impale or bind them.

Finally, when the king was starting to get impatient, Jax made walls spread all around the hole as he directly shattered the ground, which was only holding thanks to his magical power. As it broke, all ten elite guards, the random Vulcan and the king fell in the hole. As soon as they fell inside, Jax covered the top of the hole with his nature magic. Afterwards, he reduced the light with his darkness magic, used his 'Fearful scream,' shot multiple lightning bolts and air slashes to kill them.

Once he completed the attack, Jax reopened the top of the hole to see that every Vulcans were dead except the king, who was impaled in the leg by one of the spikes. Controlling the roots on the walls, Jax directly attacked the king to pierce him. However, every time the roots came closer, they would freeze over and break. As such, Jax didn't bother and simply used the earth to fall over him to bury him.

Once buried, Jax controlled the earth to condense around the Vulcan king to suffocate him. He currently only had the strength of an S-rank mage due to his high amount of magical power. However, considering that the Vulcan had strong defences, to begin with, his only trick would be to weaken him slowly. So, in this situation, suffocating the king was the best way. As he decided to wait for a dozen minutes, Jax thought about whether he could receive the king-slayer title. However, the more he thought about it, the more he thought it was cool but unnecessary, and it could be offensive to the kings, so he forgot about it.

Ten minutes later, Jax slowly unravelled the body of the Vulcan king. Upon seeing that it was still twitching due to not having had to air in the last ten minutes, Jax simply attacked him. He had no way to defend himself as Jax used the roots to try again to pierce him, and this time, it was a success. After a final roar of the king and a look at the dissipating illusion, the king closed his eyes and finally died.

Collecting in his shadow storage the bodies of the Vulcan king and the elite Vulcans as they could be used for research and thus sold, Jax left the scene of the crime. Now that the king was dead, the normal Vulcans would eventually hear about the news and turn around to go back to Mont Hakobe.

As for Jax, he had only finished half of the task. He still had a Blizzardvern and Wyverns to kill. Looking at the mountain next to him, Jax focused and used his air magic to shoot up the mountain. He had no intention of wasting time and wanted to finish the monsters as soon as possible. Unfortunately, he would have to search hard to find the sight of the enemy. After all, the mountains were big, and there were many peaks and caverns in the mountain where the monster could be hidden.